The Global Networker

Automated webinars are making their way into today’s internet marketing world. Top internet marketers, Realtors, Mortgage Brokers, and other Sales Professionals are using webinar softwares to make “live” presentations and increase their sales by 30 to 40%. That’s a big jump from other forms of internet marketing like YouTube videos, lead capture pages leading to videos, follow up emails, and other sources. Some of the top gurus who use these include Mike Filsaime, Russell Brunson, Glen Hopkins, Brian Bagnal, Dustin Mathews, Frank Kern, Jonathan Budd, Matt Lloyd, Mike Dillard and others. So what do these softwares do, are they beneficial, and what are some of the top ones that are out there? Let’s take a look…

To answer the first question of what they are, it’s a simple software that emulates a live webinar setting without you actually conducting a live presentation. The idea is automation which means that you record your webinar and/or sales presentation once and let it run without you being there. This gives you time to work on other parts of your business without missing sales presentations.

The good systems emulate everything from creating webinar registration and thank you pages to when users hop on, how many users you want to view the presentation at once, when you want the “Buy Now” button to appear, what you want the webinar setting to look like, built-in autoresponders for reminders and follow ups,Google Analytics for tracking, and many more features. They have ways that you can integrate them into social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. You can also tell the systems how many days you want the webinar to run and on what times.  Just think about the last time you attended a live webinar and the system looks exactly like that except it’s not actually live.

Top marketers are using them for obvious reasons. It’s a proven fact that one-on-one presentations close more sales than any other form. The second best are live presentations to larger audiences and online webinars because you can close on several different people at once. Just think about this – if you have a group of 40 to 50 people looking at the same presentation and you are making a presentation for 60 to 90 minutes in a “live” setting, you are bound to make some sales. This works especially well for high ticket items anywhere from $200 to $1,000 or more. There is also another aspect which is social proof. If you were to hop on a presentation where you could see that there are 40 other people like you who are seeing it, the presenter builds instant credibility and the environment also creates a seed of thought that says “Man, I better hop on this before the other 40 people do,” or “This must be important since there are others like me who are on it too.” Social proof is one of the best tools to build credibility.

Automated Webinars Comparison

I’ve spent hours comparing them and listening to presentations regarding them. In summary, here’s what I’ve found.We’ll compare Stealth Seminar, WebinarMax, Webinar A-Go-Go, & Evergreen Business System.  They all have some of the same basic features such as: autoresponder integration (Aweber, GetResponse, MailChimp, Infusionsoft, Icontact, and others), Email questions, Live Chat, Webinar Replay Pages, Delayed Events – which allows users to add “Buy Now” or “Get Started” buttons or even allow free giveaways forwarding the users to the offers, Landing/Registration page templates, Custom Webinar dates and times, Analytics tracking through built-in system or Google Analytics, and a few other features.

Find Out About A Revolutionary Webinar System

Here are some differences: One main feature is blackout dates, which are specific days/dates that you don’t want the system to run a webinar, like Thanksgiving or Christmas. The only system that does allow this feature is Evergreen Business System. Another one is being able to use the registrant’s own local time zone. For this feature, a few of them do allow this while others don’t. Split testing, which allows users to test which registration pages work best, is another feature only allowed on a few of them. This one is really important because you want to be able to track what sales letters and/or videos work best and what don’t.

Which leads me to the next point – Evergreen Business System is the only software that allows you to look at when the attendees dropped off the presentation. This feature helps you modify your presentation for better efficiency. One really cool feature that is only offered by Stealth Seminar and Evergreen is being able to send reminder text messages to the users ten minutes before the start of the webinar. You are also able to send out a reminder voice recording with both of these systems. If you’re into affiliate marketing, mostly all of them offer the chance to promote the products as an affiliate.

Here’s An Overview Of The System That I Use:

Now to a buying point that makes a big difference – value. Price is what something costs. Quality is how good the product is, including all of the features. Value is a combination of price and quality. Simply put, value is getting a high quality product that fits your needs for a solid price. Here’s the breakdown on automated webinars:

• Stealth Seminar = $97 one-time and then $67/mo. = $800+/year
• WebinarMax = $37 to $67/mo. = $444 to $800+/year
• Webinar A-Go-Go = $147/mo. = $1764/year
• Evergreen Business System = $497 one time or $297 of only two payments

The one that has the best value is simply Evergreen Business System. It offers some of the best features in the market for the lowest investment. After the first year use, there is simply no comparison. I’m a happy user of this system because I love the features. More importantly, I can use the training that is already in the back office provided by two of the best marketers out there in Mike Filsaime and Hector Yague. Mike Filsaime also revolutionized internet marketing with his Butterfly Marketing script back in 2008. There are literally hours of training materials within the system that benefits every user – from beginners to experts.

Click Here To Increase Your Sales Using Automated Webinars

Overall, automated webinars are a great way to create a system within your business, no matter what type of business it is. There are several systems out there that offer different features but one of the best systems is Evergreen. I highly recommend using automated webinars to elevate your sales to the next level.

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Chinmay Kommuru

chinmay@theglobalnetworker.com

(203) 422-9899

Automated Webinars

Starion Energy Now Offers Their Services In All 50 States!

* Update as of July 17th, 2012. Make sure you read below the line for all existing deregulation information. 

How’s that possible if only about 20 states are deregulated across the country? It’s because Starion just introduced their utility advocate program. Basically, with this offering, Starion will now look at all electric, natural gas, water, and sewer bills for the past 36 months for any errors and overcharges. The most common type of errors on utility bills are meter errors, rate errors, mathematical/clerical errors,  missed incentives and unclaimed credits, and duplicate charges. Research has shown that up to 70% of companies may be overcharged on their utility billing while up to 90% of non-profits may be overcharged on their utility billing.

How does Starion get paid on this? If the company finds refunds for the customer, Starion keeps half the refund and gives the other half to the customer. And it gets even better because Starion Energy will continue to monitor the customer’s bills for an additional 48 months to ensure none of the old errors revert back and that no new errors occur. If the company does find errors in those additional 48 months, Starion still keeps half the refund and returns the other half to the customer. By the way, this refund is after Starion has paid out their sales rep and it applies for the future 48 months as well.

All energy consultants get $40 upfront and 10% of the total current and future refunds. So for example, if they audit a customer’s utility bills and find a $2,000 error, the sales rep gets paid $200 (10% x $2000) and the company and the customer each get $900 (90% of $2000) of that refund. If they audit a customer’s utility bills and find a $100,000 error, the sales rep gets paid $10,000 and the company and the customer each get $45,000 of that refund. Pretty simple stuff. But let’s say that Starion keeps finding refunds for the next 48 months, the sales rep keeps getting paid his/her 10% share of that refund. Now that’s the way to build another residual income source.

What this means for the sales reps is that they have more than one way to build true and meaningful residual income and all 50 states to market this service in which makes Starion a step ahead of the rest.  The cool thing is that if a sales rep gets a customer in a non-deregulated state, once that state becomes deregulated, the company will follow up on the sales rep’s behalf and close that deal for them all for the same pay as described below. Man, talk about having your back. Just imagine waking up one day and seeing a monthly residual pay increase of $1,000 / $2,000 / $3,000 or more all because Starion has your back.

The refund program is not a new concept as there are several other companies that provide this service. Like other companies, Starion offers this service to bakeries, industrial/manufacturing, agriculture suck as farms and orchards, government, schools, credit unions, municipalities, non-profits such as churches, hospitals, and assisted living facilities. However, unlike other companies, Starion also offers this service for health clubs, hotels, resorts, golf courses, and restaurants. And unlike other companies, Starion offers this service in all 50 states. I love where this company is headed!

*Make sure you read below the line for all existing deregulation information!

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There seems to be a new energy company that I learn about every month and Starion Energy (pronounced Sta-ree-on) is the latest one. The biggest reason why so many energy companies are popping up is because of the energy deregulation laws. Consumers can now choose which supplier they want to have as their electricity provider (natural gas will be coming soon). So how does Starion Energy compare to other companies in the industry? Before I dive in to start-up costs and pay structure, here’s  a little bit about their background…

Company History: Starion has been a licensed supplier since December 2009 and has been in business since March 2010. They are based out of Stratford, CT. It was founded by Robert Zappone and Frank Rosa who were both energy brokers themselves before this company. Although the company doesn’t have leaders who are “big shots” in the energy industry, both Rob and Frank seem to have had humble beginnings and can probably relate to brokers better since they used to be one. Fred Stevens is mainly their director of sales and has helped launch another energy company before to over 10,000 reps in six to twelve months.

As of May, 2012, the company has a little over 2,500 reps. Starion recently incorporated a “hybrid” model to grow their business with a mix of direct sales and network marketing. Most energy companies have simply chosen the network marketing model as a growth strategy.

Now lets compare Starion with other “big shots” and lets start with start-up and recurring fees:

Cost of Entry and Fees

As far as recurring fees, Starion doesn’t have any while others range from $20 to $40 per month. Most energy companies justify the recurring fees as a “website” fee but Starion gives its brokers a back office and a customer facing website for no charge. Ampegy does have other companies beat in the “States” category, as it operates in 10 states. It doesn’t mean that it offers deregulation in all portion of the states; it just means that they have at least one utility in all of the states.

To break it down further, Starion only charges $149 bucks while other companies charge anywhere from $199 to $350 to get started. North American Power (NAP) does offer an option to start for free if you reside in one of the fives states mentioned and all you need to do is sign up your bill, but they charge $20 per month if you want to market their 100% green product.

So if you were to consider the broker opportunity, what pays you better? Let’s review the residential payouts first…

Residential Residual Income

The customer acquisition bonus (CAB) is paid out when a broker enrolls a customer to start saving money on their electric bill. Only Starion and NAP pay some sort of CAB. All of the companies above do pay some sort of “Fast Start” bonus, but if you are considering to be a broker I would look at their residual payouts.

You want to be able to sit back and simply collect checks every month… that’s true financial freedom.

Most residential homes in the country use anywhere between 500 to 1,000 kilowatt hours / month. Starion and Viridian beat the others by paying anywhere from $1 to $2 / mo. It’s $1 to $2 for Viridian depending on your promotion level while its $1 to $2 for Starion depending on the customer usage as they pay $.002 / kwh. The higher your promotion level, the better the payout for Viridian. Basically, Starion Energy and Viridian pay out the highest residuals if you simply want to focus on going out and getting residential customers. But what about commercial customers? Let’s compare…

Commercial Residual Payouts

To begin with, we will assume that all commercial accounts start at 5,000 kwhs/ mo. Ampegy pays out $2/ mo. regardless of the kwhs being consumed by the customer. Man, they’re definitely out of the game!! CCM pays out a strict 1 mill or $.001 per kwh which is how the numbers above are calculated. Here’s a countdown of the top 5 by payout… 5. Ampegy , 4. Viridian, 3. CCM, tied for 1. NAP and Starion. In other words, NAP and Starion pay out the most for their reps to go out and get commercial customers.

So why does Ampegy, Viridian, and CCM pay less? Besides Starion, all the companies above are MLM companies and pay you more for creating  ”levels” of recruits or customers. The funny thing is that mostly all the MLM energy companies only pay you anywhere from $.25 to $.75 cents for every rep that you recruit that brings on customers while Starion pays out $.25 to $50 cents as well; this means that the MLM energy companies are keeping more and paying out less while the “hybrid” company is paying generously more to their reps.

What’s missing from this review?

Rates being offered to customers. You want to be able to offer your customers the best rates, period. You’re in business to help people save money for free with no hassles. The best way to find this out is to visit your state’s utility website. Most companies offer an introductory rate with a variable rate after a few months and some companies offer a variable rate with a cap which guarantees customers a rate that will be below a certain amount. Some companies also offer a fixed rate for small and large commercial accounts.

Earn Residual Income – Become An Energy Broker!

What else is missing? Policies and procedures of each company. Each company has different marketing policies for acquiring customers and recruits. For example: some companies allow door to door while others don’t. Feel free to use this article as a reference when comparing the energy broker options. Until next time…

If you like what you’ve read, please share it with others and comment below!

Chinmay Kommuru

chinmay@theglobalnetworker.com

(203) 422-9899

Starion Energy

Let me start off by saying it can take some time to see results with Google optimization.  The main reason to implement optimization is to have your site rank as the first one for search results, or at least in the first page. Since this doesn’t happen immediately, its important to understand what methods will give you great rankings and what steps you should take before implementing any optimization strategy.  For the newbie out there, optimization is the practice of getting your web pages to show up in the Google results for specific search words or phrases.  The idea is that the higher your ranking, the more exposure you’ll have to visitors which could translate into a significant spike in sales (if you have your sales funnel set up the right way).

The process of getting your web site to appear in the #1 spot on Google for a specific keyword has attracted many people to study how to achieve better rankings.  Most people would agree that everything starts with the fundamental keyword research.  Honestly, you should spend a good four to five hours researching for the right keywords. This might seem time-consuming, but if you do the pre-work, you can get a good list of thirty to fifty keywords to compete for. By doing this, you can avoid marketing against a lot of competition and can avoid unprofitable search terms.

Once you’ve identified the keywords you’ll target (maybe by using a tool like Market Samurai or Google Adwords), you can begin figuring out your strategy.  There are a variety of SEO methods that work. Some like to optimize videos, while others like spinning articles and building thousands of back links. Let me be the first one to tell you that Google loves back links (links that point back to your site). But, Google hates “unnatural” back links.  A lot of people also try to utilize social buzz to rank their pages.  There are pros and cons to each of these strategies.

The pros of SEO (search engine optimization) is that if you rank well for a top keyword, you can get a lot of traffic to your site.  Also, your marketing efforts can be cumulative. Once your page is ranking well, all you’ll need to do is maintain its ranking which may take much less time and money to do so. Going deeper into the pro’s; after reading the book “Outsmarting Google” by Evan and Bradley Bailyn, SEO is all about creating back links, having the right page title, and having the right URL.

For example: If I were to write an article on the keyword “dress shirts,” my URL would contain that keyword at the end of it such as www.examplesite.com/dress-shirts. My page title would have “dress shirts” in it and back links will come once I use social buzz and other similar forms of advertising that will give my website some natural exposure. This will increase the chance that someone will link back to my site. By the way, Evan has been interviewed by The New York Times, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC News, and others for his ability to rank websites on Google’s first page. So I’d say that’s some good advice to follow.

Some of the con’s related to SEO are that rankings are sometimes unpredictable and you have to be concerned with the ever-changing online environment.  For instance, sometimes the search engine may decide to tweak their algorithm and your SEO strategy might not work as effectively as it once did. However, the main reason for a search engine to change their algorithm would be to avoid spammers. Spammers sometimes figure out the algorithm of search engines and get ranked to the top using unethical ways. So this means that if your site is ever banned or it disappears, Google probably thinks that it’s a spammy site.

Overall, Google optimization should still be used as an online marketing strategy to build awareness and drive traffic.  It’s important to understand the mercurial nature of optimization and to always keep up to date with the best strategies or software that might help automate your efforts. To learn more about how to rank high on Google, check out my free 5 day internet marketing boot camp towards the top right of this page. It’s free, so what do you have to lose?

If you like what you’ve read, please share it with others and comment below!

Chinmay Kommuru

chinmay@theglobalnetworker.com

(203) 422-9899

Google Optimization

Marketing with social media comes in all shapes and sizes.  There are businesses online with large budgets and then there are many people just starting online using social media to promote their products and services.  As a result, more than a handful of different methods have emerged to use social media.  Most companies will be fine to hire an internal social media consultant who can handle the daily operations.  Some larger companies may consider out-sourcing their social media marketing or look to purchase deluxe social media software to help automate more of the marketing process.

Social media is a powerful vehicle to create awareness and drive traffic to your website.  Many people believe that social buzz is becoming more important in the search ranking factors as well so marketing with social media may actually pay dividends in multiple areas online.  Lets check out a few ways to use social media to market your business.

Many beginners first get started by using popular sites like Facebook or Twitter.  It takes only a few minutes to set up an account and you can begin connecting with users that share similar interests.  The best thing to do is to connect with like-minded individuals and start making connections.  Another way to expand your social media marketing is to use automated book marking sites like OnlyWire to create content and direct users back to your FanPages or social media profiles.  By providing your social media accounts a bit more exposure, you’ll be helping with organic rankings and may get more traffic to your social media buzz.  The idea with most social media is not to come out directly and try and make a hard sell, but rather to make a connection and build trust with the user on the other end.

Many people are getting leads by employing another way to use social media.  This tactic is usually practiced by those with a bit more understanding of online marketing and also for those who have a reasonable marketing budget since it includes purchasing PPC advertisements on the various sites. If you want to learn more about PPC, check out my article on pay per click marketing.

There are other ways to plan and execute your marketing with social media.  Many have found automated systems like HootSuite (for Twitter) or Synnd (for automated Facebook likes) to be very successful as it speeds up the marketing process and saves you precious amounts of time.  Large companies have actually been built on simple automated software.  However, some companies decide to completely hand over their social media efforts to others and many social media consulting firms are popping up to help meet the demand.

It’s important to keep your communities in social media engaged with you and your products.  Another way to boost your social media marketing is to engage frequently in online forum conversations as a way to establish yourself as an authority figure and also allow others to more easily connect with you.  Using blog icons to link back to your social media is also extremely effective in generating new leads or prospects.  Whatever method you choose, remember that social media is designed to be fun so enjoy your time with it. If you want to learn how to take your internet business to the next level, check out my free 5 day internet marketing bootcamp on the right hand side. See you next time…

If you like what you’ve read, please share it with others and comment below!

Chinmay Kommuru

chinmay@theglobalnetworker.com

(203) 422-9899

Marketing With Social Media

Finding a turnkey internet business is a dream for most people, however, many don’t know what to look for and end up getting distracted pursuing ideas online that will never produce the real results that they are looking for.  Finding one is much easier if you know what elements to look for, especially if its a business that you are really interested in. Creating one can take some time, but the added benefit is that you are branding yourself while creating the business as well. So before you find or create one…

Here are 5 Essential Elements Of A Turnkey Online Business

First, it must begin with you. A business is just that, it’s a business. Not having a brick and mortar business does have its benefits, but it is still a business overall. You will be the driver and will need to have the proper mindset geared toward success.  If you don’t prepare yourself mentally, then you may end up giving up when times get rough. So before you even consider a turnkey business, are you prepared to make it happen? Are you prepared to face the tough times with determination, hard work, and persistence that will help your business pass the early stages?

Second, its important to choose a product thats in demand.  If you want a recession proof business then its pertinent to choose a product that everyone wants and needs.  There are a variety of options here and its important to do proper due diligence of the company, industry, and competition before devoting your precious time and effort. My efforts are mainly towards energy deregulation. Why is that? Everyone uses electricity, there are no inventories, no collection calls, and its free for all customers to start saving money. And guess what? Every month they pay their bill, I get paid automatically. So if you find a product that everyone can use or already are using, creating a turnkey model becomes that much easier.

Third, ask yourself ‘What is the revenue model?’ or ‘How do we make money?’ because the answer to this question will ultimately be where your focus ought to be centered.  If you are affiliated with a company, you should find a compensation plan that offers you upfront cash-flow so that you can stay in business and also find a company that offers the residual income on the back-end so you’ll be able to build the business and then gain your time back. The main reason to go into business is to leave yourself of the duties and still keep getting paid. Having a residual pay structure will help you do that.

Fourth, you’ll want to have a system in place that allows you to properly train those that you partner with.  The better the flow of information, the lower the learning curve and the quicker things materialize. To materialize this, I’d recommend reading the book “EMyth” by Michael Gerber. I have read parts of the book and it talks a lot about how you should document everything to create a “system” so eventually it’ll run on its own.

Fifth, automation is essential.  Without automation, you’ll never be able to leverage the power of technology and people in the time frame that you desire.  It’s possible to automate most processes or at least to outsource those processes where you can create a true turnkey model and walk away with a wealthier lifestyle.  A few things that I recommend are an email marketing campaign such as Aweber or GetResponse and iWowWe for video email marketing. This will help you stay in touch with your customers, and even help turn potential customers into actual ones. Until next time…

If you like what you’ve read, please share it with others and comment below!

Chinmay Kommuru

chinmay@theglobalnetworker.com

(203) 422-9899

Turnkey Internet Business